Tuesday, October 1, 2013

this is for You

I had somewhat of a rough week last week. I wasn't able to go to church all week, I experienced a rough patch in my faith because of something stupid I did and my horrible expectations. I perservered, though. I tried to stay close to God as much as possible but I also felt like God was teaching me a lesson...that nothing I do is going to make me worthy of anything. I always battle with this. God had to remind me again, humble me again...and show me that He loves me...no matter what. I was able to be fearless in a lot of areas in my life but I was still struggling holding on to God because I felt like a failure. I went to God, though...I tried. I stopped praying as much, I stopped reading as much bible...I just felt like an idiot. I felt groggy...but God still was there, ya know...even though I felt far away in my own mind. I also experienced something bad with my part-time job; which had me feeling pretty low. I felt like I wasn't going to get paid...I actually realized I wasn't getting paid. That's what I expected. I accepted it. I even read a devotional about money that seemed to come at the RIGHT time. Like seriously. OF COURSE. God is real. He moves. He speaks and He spoke. He said to me, "Don't put your hope in money...there is nothing almighty about the dollar." He also said something other things about money. The money topic in this devotional came RIGHT before I am getting paid by my two jobs. All orchestrated by God to help remind me about my responsibilities for Him about money. Anyway, I read the devotional, with the acceptance that I would let the money in my heart go. My friend told me some good news about her day and I felt so happy for her. On the way home, I listened to a sermon about the incredible, incredible sacrifice Jesus made and how we can't even fathom it. How bad sin is and how we can't even fathom sometimes how awful it is. I listened to that just being so thankful for Jessus and the promise of Heaven. Thankful to Jesus answering my prayers about my friend. I was deeply accepting of not receiving my money and then as soon as I got home, I checked my email and boom! The lady at my job said she was going to pay me. It's half the amount originally but I proposed that amount because I wanted to be fair. We had a little debate about when I should be paid and how much, but I had given up altogether. She emailed me first. It was a miracle. I was also able to find another part-time gig that is home-based and seems legitimate; I will continue to pray about it, though.

It's just incredible and a huge reminder that humility is so important. Not a false sense of it. Surrender in your heart is so important. Holding onto God by a thread is so important. Even if you're not perfect He still loves you....but He still expects you to perform your best, as best you can, even if your best is raising your pinky in praise to Him. He still loves you in your mess...It's because He loves you, not because of who you are or what you did but just because. He just loves you and He can love you so much more so because of His Son.

Writing this, I don't wanna build an altar to myself. Things like this can easily become that. I really want this to be an altar to God and reminder to myself of what He has done in my life. He has provided and come through. He has broken my heart with just how He moves. It causes me to cry because I am just so thankful He loves me despite myself. I am so thankful that He still loves me...even though I really feel it this time I don't deserve it.

I also and thankful that He visited me this morning, early in the morning, in the night, I was dead dog sleepy but I decided to get up and spend some efforted time with Him and it just seemed to really bless my day despite how ugly I felt all over. He reminded me that He loves me and that He expects this life from me PSALM 34. And that He will work out everything for my good Romans 8:28. My friend sent me a scripture also, the one I mentioned earlier. He just spoke to me in different ways today and these verses, especially Roman 8:28 (which I heard of repeatedly from different sources) really confirmed that He was speaking to me about this.